SABRA’S NEW BIG BROTHERS ON FIRE!

We’d like to present the award for Tuffest Week in Rock for this past 7er to our friend Sabra Laval. There she was one minute, driving her car and minding her own, enjoying the new Listen! Listen! ep no less, and then the next she’s standing outside the car as it burns to the ground with her guitar, microphones and left shoe inside. Harsh.

If her saintly pipes and auto misfortune weren’t enough, there was another reason why we took an hour out of our phone-destroying, wii-breaking player-hating Saturday night to go check her out – new lineup! Yuss. Returning to the stage as part of the band of brothers called the, er, Big Brothers was the banjo-tastic Mr. Craig Breaux, but joining them for the first time on guitars was Mr. Austin Lloyd and on drums Mr. Richard Didnotcatchhislastname. Yes. Drums. Richard and Craig play in a rockabilly band together (we’re stoked – more on that when we can unearth it) and we’d have to say that the entire thing went very well, and added a great dynamic to the live sound. Add to that the fact that Richard’s first and only practice with the band was a few hours before the show, and it goes without saying that there’s still a bit of this and that to be worked out before their next show.

Sadly, however, said show (in Houston anyways) is not until July 23rd. However, take some solace in the fact that there are now four (COUNT EM!) tracks of their available for download off ye olde myspace profile. If you happen to be in San Antonio or Austin, you can catch Sabra at the Mohawk or the Red Room on June 22 or 23rd respectively.

DOES YOU IPOD KNOW: SABRA AND THE BIG BROTHERS

It’s hard to beef on a free festival with five stages all within a block of each other sporting almost 50 acts. But if there’s any performer whose timeslot and stage is out of place at saturday's Westheimer Block Party, it would probably have to be Sabra and the Big Brothers noon appearance outside Numbers. Granted, we have some concern that performing so early in the day might set them up for the sort of audience Satin Hooks was misfortuned with in Austin last week, but more than that, Sabra’s music evokes nothing involving open blue skies above.

MP3: Sabra and the Big Brothers - Gentle Man

'Gentle Man', admittedly the only piece of her music that we have ever heard, really should only be performed at dusk. When the last few shades of white have already been stained grey, and you have to take the long walk alone past the Boo Radley house – the rotting wood palace with no lights inside and a towering ancient oak in the front-yard so immovable that God himself uses it as a foothold to pull the night ever westward. There, on the porch in an old wicker chair, the tip of her boot alone visible through the murk, Sabra plays guitar with only a ghost-rustle of bending leaves as accompaniment.

Is it a lullaby to calm the beasts in the walls behind her? Is it a siren song to lure you to them? Is it both? Can such a mystery ever be pierced without peril? It can, we guess, if she’s playing in the sun – but of all the acts we are looking forward to this weekend, Sabra and the Big Brothers may be the only one where we sit in the alley, back to the fence in listening bliss, and hoping that she and Boo don't see us.